Lynette Duncan
Lynette Duncan was a teenage mother who appeared in the 2012 Christmas Special. She is portrayed by Ami Metcalf. Overview In her final year of school, Lynette is has a job lined up for her as soon as she finishes school come Easter, as a filing clerk at a factory. Lynette is shown to be very responsible and smart, and is shown to be very caring of her younger brothers. However, despite how responsible she is, Lynette had a fling with a boy around Easter who was staying in a boarding house across from the Duncans. After the encounter, Lynette found herself pregnant. Fearful and ashamed, she hid the pregnancy for months, never letting on to anyone that she was pregnant and successfully hiding it with bulky clothing. Lynette, who was already plump, was never suspected. In the midst of winter, Lynette and her mother bring the two older boys and Lynette's new infant brother to the antenatal clinic for their immunisations. As the boys watch Fred attempt to replace electric lights on a Christmas tree, Lynette looks at the desk with some brochures on display. As she examines one on women's health during childbirth, Chummy walks up to find a pamphlet to give another woman, and strikes up a conversation with the teenager. Chummy sees what she's reading and asks if Lynette is interested in being a nurse. Lynette says no, and tells her about the job she has lined up for her. Through the exchange about Lynette's future, the girl seems very closed off, and timid. When Chummy goes and speaks with Trixie, she remarks that she thinks that Lynette is closed off due to the stress of being a teenager and the social changes that arise. Unknown to them, Lynette secretly pockets the childbirth pamphlet. A few days later, as Lynette is walking home in the snow, she stops to inspect an abandoned building. As she does, Chummy rides up to her and recruits her for a church Nativity play she's putting on with her Cub Scout group. Lynette is to play the part of an angel. During rehearsal a while later, Lynette's contractions begin, and she successfully breathes through them. Later that night, as Lynette lays in bed in excruciating pain, her mother looks in on her asking if she's seen her kitchen shears and twine. Lynette says she hasn't and her mother takes notice on how ill she looks. Lynette assures her it's only her period and her mother believes the lie, kissing her goodnight, and rather briskly tells her where the Aspirin is. When she leaves, Lynette gets up, and retrieves the kitchen twine and scissors beneath her pillow. For a while, Lynette quietly suffers through her contractions knelt by the side of her bed, until she quietly gets dressed and sneaks out of the house in the dead of night. She hobbles to the abandoned building she found earlier and enters. In an abandoned room, after laying out newspapers, Lynette slumps down against a pillar and starts to push. As there is thunder booming in the distance, no one hears her scream. Between contractions, she whimpers for her baby to help her. Reaching down, she helps the baby out, and when it is delivered, it is a healthy baby boy. Stunned and afraid, Lynette ties off and cuts the cord, but does not pick up her son from the cold floor for a moment. When she does, she cradles him close and breaks down crying, though her baby calmed almost as soon as she held him. When Lynette feels well enough, she gathers up the baby, puts him in a milk carton cushioned with a pillow case, and leaves him on Nonnatus House's doorstep. Lynette then goes home to sleep, still bleeding heavily and in pain. When Cynthia and Trixie find the baby the following morning, he is turning blue from the cold, his pulse is slow and his breathing is shallow. However, with the nurses' help, the baby is brought up to temperature without any complications. The nuns raid the good-will box for baby clothes, and upon finding only girlish clothes, Sister Evangelina tells the nurses that they will buy the abandoned baby proper clothes. When wondering what to call the baby, Fred tells the nurses and nuns that it is "customary to name an abandoned infant after someone closely related with its rescue". Obviously he wanted the baby named Fred, but the women agree to name him after the Patron Saint of their order, St. Raymund Nonnatus. Thus, the baby is baptized as Raymond. When the police are called by the Sisters, they examine the pillow case and the twine the cord was tied off with. Sister Julienne remarks that although Nonnatus House has been in Poplar for 60 years, they have never had a case of abandonment. They find a flyer with the logo of the abandoned building where Lynette gave birth, and plan to investigate it. When Sgt. Noakes asks the Sister why she thinks someone would do this, she wisely says that to her, there are only two reasons for ever doing anything; "one is love and the other is fear". She remarks that both seemed to be at play with the abandoned baby's case. At the abandoned building, the officers find where Lynette gave birth, and the placenta. When examining it, Sister Bernadette deems it to be less than 24 hours old and incomplete. This is very dangerous for Lynette, as an incomplete placenta could cause a uterine infection, leading to septicaemia that could become fatal. In the following few days, Lynette is shown to still be unwell, while the community gathers together donations for Raymond, including baby clothes, a cradle and even baby food. The nurses take good care of little Raymond, but it is revealed that at the end of the week, a Social Worker will be coming to take him into foster care, and subsequently get him adopted. The nurses are sad about this, lamenting that he will be "lost to his mother forever". Raymond's story is put in the paper, and Lynette sees it. As she's reading through it, her father comes and she shows him the article. Mr. Duncan remarks that whoever the mother is deserves punishment. Unaware of his daughter's discomfort, Mr. Duncan gives her a larger than usual allowance, saying that she's a good girl who never causes a fuss and does a lot to help her family. Becoming desperate, the police go door to door in search of Raymond's mother. As they knock on the Duncans' door, Lynette is in the bathroom being sick, so the police leave the flyer in the letter box. At the play's costume rehearsal, Lynette collapses on stage, much to everyone's shock. When she briefly regains consciousness, Lynette apologizes profusely to Chummy, and admits that the baby is hers. At the hospital, Lynette's mother sits outside the room, while her father sits at her bedside. Chummy arrives with flowers to visit Lynette and Mrs. Duncan explains what Lynette told her about how she got pregnant. Mrs. Duncan is shown to be very upset with her daughter, though also very hurt, as she knows Lynette will have to give up her child. She says she "should've kept me eye on her", but admits she was three months pregnant herself and was sick at the time. Still, she laments that she should have noticed. Both parents are concerned about their family's reputation, and knowing that their teenage daughter becoming pregnant out of wedlock would cause a scandal, they coldly plan to let the baby go for adoption, without asking Lynette. They refuse to hear anything about the baby and ask when the adoption representatives will come. On Friday, when Lynette and her family arrive at Nonnatus to sign her legal rights to her son away, the Duncans are brought through to the parlour, where baby Raymond is in his basket. Lynette stares at the basket, and Chummy tells her she's allowed to pick him up. Lynette says she's afraid to, because she's put him down forever once, and can't bear to do it a second time. Mrs Duncan chides Chummy saying that it's cruel to show Lynette her baby when she can't take care of it. She goes on to say that Lynette having a baby without a husband is "flying in the face of everything God wrote". Chummy gently replies that mother nature wrote the rules between mother and baby. Knowing how his daughter is hurting, Mr. Duncan tells his daughter to pick up the baby. When Mrs. Duncan makes to protest, he tells her that she's a mother too. Lynette approaches the baby and picks him up. As she stares down at him, she begins to cry, apologising over and over again. Mrs. Duncan mistakenly assumes she's apologising to her parents, but Mr. Duncan tells her she's apologising to Raymond. Hesitantly, Mr and Mrs Duncan approach their daughter and grandson, and when Mrs Duncan reaches out to touch Raymond's head, she and her husband accept the child, and let Lynette keep her baby. We last see Lynette walking down the snowy street with her mother, pushing both of their babies in prams, and greeting Mr. Duncan at his work. In voice over, Jenny says that the Duncans made the best of their circumstances, and gave back to the community by donating wool to the church's play, as thanks for taking care of Raymond. Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Patients